My time is running out
Trip Start
Mar 01, 2010
1
76
92
Trip End
Dec 14, 2010
Banjarmasin, Borneo, Indonesia
Monday, November 1, 2010
The 18 hour boat ride turned into 22. Couple that with the fact that there was a 5 hour delay and the end result was that I landed in the city of Banjarmasin in Kalimantan (the Indonesian portion Borneo), at 11pm. I was still hopeful of getting away quickly, I got a taxi straight to the bus station hoping I could get on something leaving straight away. No luck, they had all gone for the day. I was rather annoyed, I now had a deadline to get to the Philippines and this was not helping.
I had to find a taxi man that could bring me to a cheap guesthouse and I always try to avoid the aggressive sort of cat calls that a lot of these guys employ. I got called over by one guy who was eating at a food stall, yeah he could take me to a losmen (a cheap guesthouse), I just had to wait for him to finish his dinner. I liked his attitude.
En route to the the losmen he pointed out all the expensive hotels in town with their limousines, porters and nightclubs. To contrast that, we had to bang on the door to get into the losmen he brought me to. The fat shirtless owner eventually opened the door, gave me a key and pointed me upstairs to the rooms. It was rather grotty but it served a purpose.
The taxi driver had assured me the first onward bus would leave at 8am in the morning. I managed to get up and get out to the bus station again by 8.30 but I was told the first bus wasn't actually until 3pm. I had over 6 hours to kill. I had breakfast, spent 3 hours in an internet cafe then had lunch. I boarded the empty bus at 2pm and slept until we set off.
